This first day has been one of the worst days of any in my years of travel. If anything could go wrong, it did. And it didn't help that I had gotten NO sleep on my flight from MSP to CDG on Delta (even in Premier Select). So I was exhausted and tired when i got out at CDG.
I've already written about the experience of getting from Terminal 2E to 2F. That was over and I made my way to the Air France lounge in 2F. This was very nice and I'm so glad I got to visit. I'd hope to catch a nap but all the relaxation nooks were taken. However, I got something to eat and drink and tried to relax. I highly recommend this lounge! If you have a long layover, you can buy a day pass there and use the lounge. They had wonderful wonderful food available, all kinds of coffee and alcohol (I would have loved a glass of wine but with the lack of sleep, figured it wasn't a good idea). I could have taken a shower (another nice perk) but decided not to until I got to the hotel, although I did brush my teeth and freshen up.
My flight was scheduled to leave CDG around 3:20 pm and get to Berlin around 5. By the time I made it there ready to board, it had been over 7 hours since my initial flight landed at CDG. Everyone got on and we took off. It's about a 90 minute flight and we'd been in the air about 50-55 minutes when the pilot made an announcement that we needed to go back to Berlin because there was a problem (no explanation about the problem). He first made it in French and then someone translated in English. Not a lot of explanation so when the flight attendant came down the aisle, I asked him if we were going to deplane or just wait in our seats for the problem to be fixed. He said we would wait.
So the plane turned around and flew back to CDG (with a somewhat scary landing - everyone clapped when we finally hit the ground) . As we got there, many of the passengers started to collect their luggage from the bins. There was a small group of us sitting close by (a couple on their way to a Viking cruise, a guy from Germany who was living in Boston, and a man from Montreal). We were all confused about this so we tried to find out what was going. Evidently we were deplaning and they were going to try and "work something out" so that we got to Berlin.
We were skeptical because it was a full flight with lots of passengers and there was no way we would all be able to be squeezed into the one remaining flight to Berlin that evening. The guy from Germany had been traveling since Sunday and had to spend the previous night in a hotel because his flight was cancelled. So we tried to find answers and eventually someone said that were going to be boarding a bus and taken back to the airport, where they would find us a new plane. Uh huh.
By now, we'd been sitting on the runway for around 30 minutes. The bus showed, we got on and were told the bus would take us to the terminal and we would be met by someone who would then tell us where to go. The bus dropped us off at Terminal 2F, we went inside, and stood there and waited. And waited. And waited and no one showed up. We didn't know what to do - we were afraid to leave because we didn't want to miss our chance at a flight. Finally one person went and found someone who worked for Air France - they told him that we should go up to customer service.
So all of us (about 40 people) trooped up the stairs to the AF office (the 2nd bus that was carrying the rest of the passengers had disappeared - we had no idea where they were taken). Someone at AF told us to go down to the F21 gate where our new plane would be. So off we went, down the corridor, following signs for F21, which turned out to be down one more level away from all the other gates. When we got there we found the remaining passengers there. Evidently their bus driver knew what was going on and tok them to the correct place.
Continued in part 2 (ran out of words).